Millennium Turns - West Midlands Rail Scene Around the Year 2000

"The Class 56s dug in their heels to the point where, in the second half of 2000, they actually made something of a comeback."

We kick off our nostaligic pictorial just south of Bankers Bridge, Bromsgrove, with a real encapsulation of the times. Virgin HST sets in mixes of InterCity and Virgin livery were common through the late 1990s. By 2000, most of the repainting was complete, but there were still plenty of opportunities to see the occasional red set with a rogue IC power car at one end. And with time running out for the last IC stock set, one complete InterCity formation was assembled in Y2K. The set above, captured on the doorstep of the new millennium at the end of summer 1999, is led by 43159.

Birmingham New Street: Millennium Nights

"The electric loco would then come out of the bay, and couple onto this end of the remaining stock. That train would then go forward to Warrington, departing via Duddeston and Bescot."

A classic 2000 scene, combining vintage electrics, on 22nd March.

Outside of specialist circles, the dawn of the new millennium is probably not remembered for a fat lot today. Most of us who are old enough may have some hazy recollection of a world-destroying computer bug that failed to destroy the world, a botched diamond robbery involving a JCB and a speedboat… and maybe a party that didn’t quite live up to the spectacle that Prince optimistically forecast in 1982.

But at the centre of UK rail operations, the year 2000 fell amid a period of accelerated change. And in Birmingham, the year brought an end to a good few long-time rail traffic institutions. The Class 309 EMU, the Class 310 EMU, scheduled mail duties for Class 47s, and booked Class 37-hauled passenger services. The ongoing delivery of Class 66 diesels continued to devastate variety on the freight scene, which, as we’ll see in this pictorial, did have a presence at New Street station...